Council Approves Permit Parking Near Stanford Ave. Trailhead

The issue of overcrowding at the Stanford Ave. entrance to Mission Peak has been going on for years now as more and more hikers use this trailhead. The small (~45 space) parking lot leads to several hundred cars being parked in the adjacent neighborhood on weekends and holidays.

As a short-term solution, City staff worked with East Bay Regional Park District staff and developed a neighborhood permit parking that will be paid for by the Park District. Streets that do not have homes along them (i.e. Antelope Dr.) will not be part of the program meaning that many spaces will still be available to hikers.

My take on this was that something had to be done in the short term to resolve this issue. I’ve heard of no other remedies that the City could implement right away. Given that, I felt we should go ahead and implement this. I think it’s a reasonable compromise to still allow a lot of parking in the area but will mitigate some of the impact on local residents. The only discussion was what percentage of residents needed to sign on to approve this. Staff recommended two-thirds. I suggested 55%. A compromise of 60% was suggested and voted on unanimously by the Council.

The discussion of whether a bigger parking lot should be built at this entrance is a separate matter. The Draft Environmental Impact Report [EIR] for this was released last year and the comment period is now closed. The Final EIR, which contains a response to all of the comments, should be released in the near future. It’s still unclear when, or even if, a new parking lot will be built.